Alliance sues over 'backdoor' water deal

Friday

Jun 4, 2010 at 12:01 AM

SACRAMENTO - A coalition of water agencies and conservationists have filed a lawsuit accusing California officials of allowing private business interests to control and benefit from a publicly financed water bank.

Staff and wire reports

SACRAMENTO - A coalition of water agencies and conservationists have filed a lawsuit accusing California officials of allowing private business interests to control and benefit from a publicly financed water bank.

The suit claims the California Department of Water Resources illegally transferred the state-owned Kern Water Bank to a joint-powers authority controlled by powerful southern San Joaquin Valley agricultural interests, including Paramount Farming Co. LLC, one of the largest fruit-tree farms in the world.

The 1995 deal, known as the Monterey Plus Amendments, "amounts to an unlawful and unconstitutional gift of a critical state asset, ceding effective control of the country's largest groundwater storage facility to private interests," the lawsuit said.

The suit seeks to undo the agreement, claiming it altered State Water Project contracts and primarily benefited "corporate irrigators" and speculative water stockpiling, the plaintiffs argue.

"This was a poorly negotiated backdoor deal that put the wealthy growers of subsidized crops ahead of fisheries and the need for a sustainable and reliable supply of clean drinking water for California's cities," Stockton's Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sport Fishing Protection Alliance, said in a written statement.

The alliance is one of five plaintiffs in the suit filed in Sacramento Superior Court. According to the lawsuit, the Monterey Plus Amendments:

» Increased exports from the Delta, making water-quality problems worse and affecting the estuary's ecosystems.

» Institutionalized the concept of "paper water," that is, water that is promised by contract but can never be delivered.

» Eliminated "urban preference," which prioritizes water deliveries to municipal customers during a drought.

» Undermined the California Water Code by transferring the Kern Water Bank to private entities.

Plaintiffs are the California Water Impact Network, Center for Biological Diversity, the sportfishing alliance, Central Delta Water Agency and South Delta Water Agency.

Department of Water Resources spokesman Matt Notley told The Associated Press his agency was reviewing the lawsuit and had no immediate comment. Paramount officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The lawsuit follows a May 5 action by the Department of Water Resources that formalized the 1995 agreement giving ownership and operational control of the 32-square-mile water bank to an entity called the Kern County Water Bank Authority.

"The Monterey agreement is 'Chinatown' on steroids," said Jennings, referring to the 1974 film about a water swindle in Southern California. "This was an agreement hatched in secret."